I Love You, Call Me Back: Poems

by Sabrina Benaim

From one of the most-viewed spoken word poets of all time, a collection exploring loneliness, anxiety, and longing--and finding peace, and even joy, in unexpected places

Sabrina Benaim, author of Depression & Other Magic Tricks, has connected deeply with readers and reached millions of viewers through her poetry, breaking down the stigma around mental illness. Now, she dives into challenging and universal territory: grief over a relationship's end, loneliness in a world under lockdown, and the anxiety of caring for a loved one from afar in the wake of a serious diagnosis.

Unfurling over the course of one month in 2020, in seventy-five original poems, I Love You, Call Me Back grapples with mental health struggles and the uncertainty of the moment and beyond. In isolation, Sabrina dares to embrace loneliness in all its permutations: the sorrow of getting your mother's voicemail when you call to say "I love you; the bitter-sweetness when your dog takes up your ex's side of the bed; the joys of eating ice cream for dinner and singing badly, loudly.

In her raw and deeply relatable style, Sabrina reminds us to love our whole selves: you can't have joy without sorrow, and being anxious or depressed doesn't mean you can never be happy. In her words, "Sometimes self-care is just surviving." And that's okay. Sabrina shows us that there's beauty and courage in that, too.

Genres: Poetry, Mental Health, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Adult, Romance, Mental Illness

Audiobook

First published October 19, 2021

Reviews

[aly ☆彡]

“While walking toward you,
for what was the last time,
I came across a swarm of bees

in the middle of an intersection.
I stood in awe of the buzzing,
honey spilt from my eyes.

I knew it could not last,
this sweetness between us,
it was always going to sting.”

I enjoyed reading some of the poems, especially the ones from Belle to Beast and Beast to Belle. The story was poignant, and I could discern the author's emotions poured into this book. To stay afloat during the pandemic, to deal with heartbreak, grief and mental health. Benaim reminds us that sometimes self-care is just surviving and that's okay. I resonate with that wisdom and courage.

However, this book didn't fully reach out to me. I wanna be touched and imbued myself with the poems but somehow I didn't. Not sure why though; probably the many different styles become the hindrance to help me feel connected or it simply doesn't. At the end of the day, only Benaim knows what she writes and feels which is totally cool and par for the course. Poetry isn't written for readers and if I'm not the right audience for it, I think that's fine too. The right person would find this beautiful and cherish it.

[destiny ♡ howling libraries]

I Love You, Call Me Back is perhaps the singular most depressing collection of poems I've ever read, and I think a part of me regrets reading it, honestly.

I more or less liked Sabrina Benaim's last poetry collection a while back, and I thought her writing had a lot of potential, so I decided to give it another try. I do think her writing itself improved since then, and these poems are well-written, but something about them didn't click with me. I'm not sure if it's because the subject matter was so miserable, and I wasn't in the right head-space for it, or what, but I actually originally DNFed this book at the halfway point a month ago before finally caving and deciding to finish it.

Topics covered in this collection include obvious things like grief, loss of a relationship, coping with life in the COVID-19 pandemic, and fear of her mother's health problems, but it also delves into eating disorders, self-harm, and emotional abuse.

One last note: let me be very clear and say that I'm no fan of toxic positivity and my less-than-stellar review has nothing to do with the topics, just with the writing itself. I'll probably call it quits here for my relationship with Sabrina Benaim's writing as I just don't think it's for me, but this collection will hold a lot of value for the right reader.

✨ Content warnings for: grief, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-harm, emotional abuse from a parent, a family member (mother) with severe life-threatening medical problems, loss of a relationship, COVID-19, lockdown, loneliness

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

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[Tyffany]

I have loved Sabrina Benaim’s work ever since a YouTube video of her reciting “explaining my depression to my mother: a conversation” popped onto my feed. Her words resonated with me in such a powerful way, and when I heard she was releasing another book I was thrilled!

And this beauty did not disappoint. Sabrina has a magical talent for pouring emotion into words and creating impactful poetry that resonates even when it isn’t about something I necessarily am or have dealt with. She beautifully captured the feelings that flowed around the pandemic, around heartbreak, around grief and mental health. I can’t recommend her work enough.

Extra thanks to Plume Books for providing me with an early review copy.

[marioncoin | coin.reads]

“the only thing we think we know for sure is the past
but our memories are stories we tell ourselves to sleep at night”

[Jude (NovelReader13)]

Rating a book that lets you into someone's lived experiences is always difficult imo.
Suffice it to say this collection feels deeply personal and incredibly vulnerable. I'm glad I read it and will surely pick it up again from time to time.

[Hannah Showalter]

i can't believe it's taken me this long to read sabrina benaim's second collection of poetry! she's always been one of the poets i admire and take inspiration from the most. discovering her in high school was life-changing, truly! this collection didn't stand out to me quite as much as her first one, but still had so many trademark things that i enjoy about her work!

[Patty]

Quick Thoughts
- Rating poetry is always a little hard for me because everyone reacts to poems differently
- I really wanted to love this, but it was more of a miss than a hit for me.
- There was maybe 5 poems that really resonated with me, the rest I just couldn't connect with at all.

[Annissa Joy Armstrong]

I listened to the audio of this book and the author is the narrator. I enjoyed her poems!!

[marriah]

3.5/5

[Caitlin Conlon]

In “I Love You, Call Me Back” Sabrina Benaim writes about mental health, hope, and fear with precision and grace. Much like her first book, she moves through depression in a way that’s familiar, like talking to a friend about how hard it’s been lately, how you miss the way it was before. Pair that with the worry and grief that comes with a loved one having medical issues, and this collection took me out. Sabrina is an important voice in contemporary poetry, and I am so grateful to have read it.

[Jen from Quebec :0)]

I really enjoyed this memoir/book of poetry! Some of the shorter verses REALLY stuck with me, which is one of the main things I'd look for in a book of poems. Recommend! --Jen from Quebec :0)

[Rae Murphy]

Okay, first off, The suspense this left me in about her mom almost made me cry. I can't even lie! I won't say anything else so no spoilers.

Oh, this was SO good. I deal with severe depression and anxiety. This book hit so many points perfectly. I have to say, the conversations between her and her mom were my favorite and I didn't expect that and was surprised in the best way.

This was beautiful, heartbreaking, hopeful.

Consider me a fan, Sabrina!

[Maia]

“I watercolor peonies instead of picking new wounds.”
made me feel something

[Lavinia]

“it rained on the first
day of summer but it was so weird
all I heard was laughter. I don’t know
if I believe in God, but I have cried
in every kind of weather..”

While the heartbreak poems are not bad, this collection really stands on those about family love and (the possibility of) grief. Just beautiful

[Taya]

read pg. 106-107 & tell me that’s not some of the greatest poetry you’ve ever read

[Shannon]

Another great collection of poems by Canadian spoken word poet Sabrina Benaim about her struggles with mental health, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, self-love and dealing with her mother's health scare and the complicated relationship she has with her father.

Her range and the breadth of topics covered were impressive. Highly enjoyed this newest collection and recommend for poetry fans and anyone struggling during the pandemic. Much thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for my advance review copy.

[Joyce Rivera González]

Started this as a quick read, but hell, I needed to close the book every two pages, exhale, and pace for a bit. Specially the first half, which was much stronger, imo

[Amany]

I started this after midnight and finished when the sun rose. I weep and weep and weep. My Sunday is made already when it’s barely 8 am now. What a poet you are Sabrina, I wish you well & peace. Hugs

[Poptart19 (the name’s ren)]

3.5 stars

Reflections on living with mental illness, relationships, family, uncertainty, loss. Some of the poems are brief & free form, some are prose-poem journal entries, some are somewhere in between. Not all the poems are exactly my style, but all of them have important things to declare.

[What I liked:]

•The arrangement of the poems in this collection is really neat. There are poems titled “July 1st” through “July 31st”, one for each day of the month that record that day’s struggles, accomplishments, fears, & survival. There are other poems in between these daily (almost like journal) entries, but the day-by-day path mapped through living out each one gives a precious sense of the survival that’s won moment by moment, a momentum to live & live fiercely.

•There is so much love in this book. The love that longs for a former lover yet still exists alone. The love, the sweet bond, of mother & daughter. The struggle to love yourself & live. They help me want to keep living.

•I appreciate how the poet talks openly about mental illness. How she doesn’t portray living with it as a smooth trajectory forward towards permanent healing. How she doesn’t take the difficult days & lapses as failures & keeps trying to live healthy despite them. How she addresses the helpfulness of psychotropic medications, but also the downsides she experiences.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•Sone of the poems are formatted as dense pages of text with no line breaks & no punctuation. That made it hard for me to follow. It’s not the stream of consciousness style I struggled with, mainly just the formatting.

CW: mental illness, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, self harm

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

[Rachel]

I wasn't sure how I was going to rate this initially. I knew I liked it, but how much did I like it?
As the day went on I kept thinking about little words here and there, fragments from different poems I'd read and that, my little sweet potato, is how I ended up on four stars.

It's ironic in a way, because I just went back and looked over my other Benaim review for reference and in the first one I said I didn't really get it, but I liked it and I felt like it was the type of book that needed reread for the full effect. That you need to keep coming back, and that's exactly what I've been doing with this book.

Now, don't get me wrong there is a lot happening here that I haven't fully connected with personally myself, but there's also a lot that I have. And, there's a lot of lingering feelings; not necessarily a "I relate to this connection" but a "I feel this emotion". This collection is about her mom being sick, grieving, lost relationships and the pandemic. I wasn't one of those people that particularly had a hard time during lock down myself (mentally that is) but a lot of this collection reminded me of the time spent at my old apartment during lockdown. It's something to keep coming back to, like a new encore every night.

Favorites included:
-Untitled, June 30
-The Good News
-The Beasts Response
-Voicemail From My Mother
-The Extinction of Honey
-Excerpt from this Morning's Phone Call
-To Do List

[Cory]

I've been a fan of Sabrina Benaim for a while, probably since before her last book came out, but I somehow missed the news that this collection was coming out until the YouTube channel "Ours Poetica" posted a video of her reading her poem "In Praise of Tomorrow." Needless to say, I had to have the book (which had luckily just released). Much like Depression & Other Magic Tricks, this collection moved me in a way that I can't quite put to words. My best comparison would be that it, as a whole, made me feel similarly to the way I felt after watching Bo Burnham's masterful Inside special earlier this year. I related to Sabrina's depiction of the lockdown very much, on the condition that I didn't have to worry about my mother potentially dying spontaneously. This book is pure heartbreak, but made with beautiful language that evokes a seemingly asinine hope in the midst of *gestures broadly*. As with all poetry collections, not everything resonated with me here, and some works came off a bit too unorthodox, messy, etc. (mainly the sequence on "Dream a Little Dream of Me" in the middle-ish of the book) for me to really enjoy. However, the bulk here is anxious quarantine melancholy (a mood I've gotten to know exceptionally well) through and through, so I have a deep appreciation for it and was effected greatly by Sabrina's poems yet again.

[Zibby Owens]

Millions of viewers know her spoken poetry, Sabrina Benaim’s new collection of essays was significantly inspired by the pandemic. Part autobiographical and part fiction, her day-by-day writings over a single month’s time touch on how she coped with Covid isolation, her mother’s serious medical diagnosis, the end of a relationship, and her mental health battles.

This book got to me with its raw intensity. I identified with it because it painted a picture of a year of Covid’s effect on us all. Especially touching were the parts where Sabrina deals with her anxiety, something I also deal with. In one chaotic page, she captured anxiety perfectly.

She wrote: "The Good News. The good news is spring came. Came anyway. Hyacinths and strawberry begonias bloomed. Myrtle spilled over concrete corners. Those little lime-green plants, the ones that look like Shrek ears, sprouted into high-rise bushes. The robins built nests, their perfect blue eggs nuzzled in Desiree's mailbox. I checked on their well-being via Instagram. I open the windows to be part of the world outside. The world is outside. It is unfathomable. I stay inside repotting plants, baking banana bread, learning unnecessarily complicated TikTok dances."

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at: https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/sab...

[Rachel]

Having been a fan of Sabrina Benaim work, I did not enter into I Love You, Call Me Back without knowing how well Sabrina writes about emotions. I was pleasantly surprised with her newest collection. I Love You, Call Me Back is a collection of poems that explore a range of emotions during the month of July 2020. Sabrina Benaim captures a range of emotions that so many people can relate to, especially during the pandemic lockdown. While Sabrina Benaim captures heavy, difficult emotions, she surprised me when describing the relationship between her and her mother. A wonderful collection of poetry.

Thank you to Netgalley and Plume for the advanced copy.

[Carolyn]

I Love You, Call Me Back is an ode to mental health. If you have wondered what depression or anxiety feels like or struggled to explain how your mental health impacts you, this book is the answer you have been seeking. It is a brutally honest look into multiple mental health concerns, all in the form of beautiful poetry. Panic Attack is accurate AF and I am kicking myself for not writing it. I love You, Call Me Back is a quick collection of poems taking place over the span of one month. It is a must-read for all. 4.5 stars

[lexi ✨]

i remember seeing this poetry book in a bookstore & the title really caught my attention & honestly i’m really glad i decided to read this.

i think this came from a place of vulnerability especially the poems about her & her mother & it was heartbreaking, & raw & made me feel so many different emotions.

[Lourdes]

Remember the day can be unspectacular & still a success.
Cry if you need to.
Dance when you can.
Instead of looking in the mirror,
look to the flowers & find yourself.
Here you are, in this endless golden hour,
in bloom, open & open & opening more.
Even if it is the only thing in this world you are sure of,
pull your name from your lips & sing.

[Soha]

4.5/5
The title made me presume that the book would have poems like the kind teenage girls write for their emotionally unavailable boyfriends.
But oh, I witnessed true love better here.
I love how there was a story of thoughts. I love the pattern followed by the recurrent symbols of the wind, the robin, Grey's Amatomy and more.
This book was absolutely a need for me.

[Brandon Forsyth]

Sabrina Benaim has always been able to make me cry. And smile. And vow to hug my loved ones more often. She’s done that all again here, and she’s also made me blush a little, too. She’s solidly reestablished herself as one of my favourite poets.

[Chihoe Ho]

A poem or two I love, but there's something about a collection of poems to repeatedly hit me over the head that just doesn't work for me. I'd love to see some of the emotions, thoughts, and ideas in this collection as a short essay or novella from Sabrina.

[Katie]

A beautiful, heart wrenchingly chaotic collection of poetry. Simultaneously encapsulating feelings of visceral freedom and claustrophobia, Benaim writes poignantly and frankly. I really liked this one.